LARGE COMPANIES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 151, 28 June 1945, Page 7

LARGE COMPANIES

BENEFIT TO THE PUBLIC

STATE'S SHARE IN PROFITS

Claiming that misunderstanding was rife concerning big companies, which were often described as a menace to the-community, Mr. A. D. Bell, chairman of directors of the Farmers' Trading Co., Ltd., addressing shareholders at the annual meeting, said, on the contrary, they were of the greatest benefit to the .community.

Dealing with the company of which he was chairman, which had a paid-up capital of nearly £800,000 subscribed by 14,000 individual holders of ordinary and preference shares, Mr. Bell said: —"During the past five years it has distributed £219,141 in dividends to its shareholders. Taxation, exclusive of Customs tariff paid on imported merchandise and sales tax, has amounted to £908,013. That is to say, while we have paid £219,141 over the past five years to you, our shareholders, for every pound we earned for you we had first to find almost £4 3/ for the Government, and to accomplish this we had to do a turnover of £3,000,000 per annum. During those same five years we paid to our staff, who render such fine service throughout our organisation, £1,864, 559 in wages. "It is easy to realise that a company such as ours is benefiting the public, the wage earner, and, to a lesser degree, those who have invested their capital in the company. Really, the principal beneficiary is the Government, which takes from us almost £4 3/ for every pound we give to our shareholders."